"Employees kept telling us that lab management is focused on numbers, not people, when it comes to safety," said panel chair Rich Ruthe, of the Technical Division. "The message might not be getting through that, although numbers are important, people are more important. We saw in certain divisions and sections where personal involvement from the top all the way to the front line translates into fewer injuries. The top managers are out and about, not just when something goes wrong, talking to employees, so the employees know that the manager cares about safety and cares about them. We found that if you take care of the people, the numbers take care of themselves."

That managers throughout Fermilab adopt a high level of personal involvement in safety is one of the seven-member panel's recommendations for reducing the injury rate at Fermilab. Others address such subjects as improved training in electrical safety, better communication about accidents that occur and their causes, ways to address poor work practices, and consistent enforcement of safety rules.

Although accident rates have steadily declined at Fermilab since 1998, said Oddone, people still get hurt at work. He charged the Panel on Injury Reduction to take a hard look at safety practices throughout the laboratory and to make recommendations for reducing injuries to as close as possible to zero.

"The Panel talked to a hundred people in confidential interviews," Oddone said. "That gave them a good view of a cross-section of the lab, from people at every level. They thought hard about the issues, and they had some critical things to say."

The interviews were educational for the panel, Ruthe said.

"Of the hundred people we interviewed," he said, "there were only one or two who did not take it seriously. As a result, we got good ideas and insight into the workings of the Fermilab safety program. Overall, we were quite pleased at how well the safety program works and the level of commitment from all employees. Even people who have many years experience, who have been at Fermilab for many years, admitted that the laboratory is now safer, that it's better, that working safely is the right thing to do. Years ago, people used to get hurt all the time. There are still one or two, here and there, who think we are overdoing safety, but the overwhelming majority of people have come around to thinking we are doing the right thing. We did not find old-timers who disagreed with the safety policy. They see the value of safety."

Oddone praised the panel for their thorough and thoughtful work and decided their report should be posted on the Fermilab Web site.

"I encourage all employees to read it," he said. "The panel had some important things to say that I felt we should all be aware of. It shows that we are not yet doing all that we could do and tells us the direction we have to go to get better. This is a positive outcome. It would be far more discouraging to me to get a glowing report. Then we would not know even where to begin to bring injuries down. There is no recommendation that the panel made that we could not implement."

Ruthe agrees that Fermilab can do better at reducing injuries.

"We have to aim for zero," he said. "Our report details what we think needs to be done to have a chance of hitting zero. The Panel members put much effort went into producing the report. We were pleased not only by what we produced but by how well it was received by the director. Now he has put the written report on line for all to see. The panel sees that as a gutsy thing to do. Now, people can say, okay, there's the report, what's the director going to do now?"

What he'll do next, Oddone says, is to meet with each division and section to talk about how the report's findings and recommendations apply to them.

"I'm going on a campaign to highlight the work the panel has done and to figure out how we put their recommendations into practice," Oddone said.
--Judy Jackson